Haunted
by Black Tangled Heart
Summary: Every theatre must have its ghost. For the Moulin Rouge, it's Babydoll. Incomplete and never to be completed.
1. Pain Turns to Truth

Haunted   
  
© 2003 Black Tangled Heart   
  
Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to the brilliant Baz Luhrmann. All chapter titles are lines from songs that belong to Joydrop.   
  
Dedication: to wonderful Milla, in hopes that she had a fantastic birthday.   
  
Author's Note: This will probably be one of my last attempts at fanfiction. I feel bad to start a chapter story, but this impatient plot bunny had to be answered to.   
  
Prologue  
  
~*~  
  
I'm the one they all throw aside; I'm their pretty one, their porcelain doll with her cracked face. I'm their marionette, and they pull the strings taut. My arms jut out at painful angles. The muscles in my legs constrict and burn. They fix my mouth into a smile. I am their perpetual puppet, with rosy cheeks and chipped alabaster skin.   
  
I'm their pastel princess. I brush the rouge onto my cheeks to hide the bruises. I smooth lipstick over the cuts on my mouth from teeth burying into the soft flesh. I spray on vanilla perfume to cover up the stench of bitterness that drips from my heart.  
  
"You're our doll," says Marie most nights when she fixes my hair.   
  
"The lit'le kitten," remarks Nini. "Sweet'st one outta alla us."   
  
"If anyone's going to go far, it's you," Arabia often tells me, pulling on her cigarettes. She has always given me reassurance when we have forced ourselves to be swallowed by the poison Underworld. She taught me how to line my eyes in kohl, seeing how my fingers trembled. She taught me that sugar was mixed with Absinthe after she watched me choke back my first bitter chartreuse shot.   
  
There were slivers of brightness amid the gloom, but fate had its dark time for me.   
  
Tonight, the door was locked behind me. No one heard me scream. There was a small knife wedged into my corset to use - my client had a history of abusing us Montmartre girls. Travesty was nursing welts on her back from his brutality; he'd given Mome Fromage a purplish burse under her left eye.   
  
He pinned me to the sheets that night, face down, raking rough nails across my shoulders. I felt blood blossom upon my skin and pain shot through me like fire, burning at my very core.   
  
I'd heard from Nini that the man had acquired a strange fascination with splitting women's skin open while under the influence of Absinthe or opium. He did just that, with the knife I had intended to use on him.   
  
He gathered my curls in his bloody fist and severed them, proceeding to bring the blade upon my throat. The pain snaked up and down my body, like a writhing serpent had emerged from the pools of blood on my flesh and the bed sheets. I wanted anything to take away the hot rawness of my wounds. I couldn't cry out, but one clean, sweet slice severed the pain, and my breath.   
  
He killed my body, but he has not killed my spirit.   
  
~*~ 


	2. I Want to Scream I Want to Cry

A/N: In this chapter I mention a character from my Green Fairy story - it is not essential that you read it, but it is recommended (story ID: 778862).   
  
Song used: "No One is Alone" - Rapunzel's solo from the musical "Into the Woods".  
  
I've been far too inspired by a lovely bit of smut Petal's been writing. I touch on it a little in this chapter. Full credit goes to her for inspiring it, for she is the Lucifer sitting on my shoulder. Brilliant one, she is.   
  
Dedication: to Crystal (Finding Beauty) because she is a truly superb writer.   
  
One  
  
~*~  
  
I cannot cry any longer.   
  
My heart has cracked inside my chest and blood has run in rivulets from my skin, but tears cannot form in my eyes. I have expected to ascend to the pearly gates of heaven or pummel into the fiery mouth of deepest purgatory, but instead I find that my spirit remains behind the locked door of the room where my corpse lies. I'd heard from Liberty many times that ghosts remained on earth because of unfinished business and could only cross over to ecstasy or agony once their destinies had been fulfilled.   
  
What is my destiny? Where is my place?   
  
Polkadot discovers my body just before sunrise. The first sound that touches my new ears will stay inside my mind for eternity: sharp shrieks, like broken glass filling her throat.   
  
I wish I could wrap my arms around my friend. I want nothing more than to wipe the anguish from her face. Chocolat finds her, and whispers consolations as he wraps my body in the clammy linen and carries it down the gilded stairs, because he cannot touch her - he will not taint her with my blood.  
  
"Who did it?" Polkadot screams, crippled with hysteria. She collapses at the foot of the staircase, fingernails clawing at air, staring at Marie and seeing nothing. Eyes glassy and face pinched, colour and softness sucked from her body. "Was he the one that killed Jess? Was he?"   
  
Jess was the late daughter of Zidler's cousin; through this family connection, the tiny young ballerina with her darling face and bruised feet became one of the first courtesans at the Rouge. She was beaten and murdered three years before on Christmas Eve. The public had known her as Emerald; she had been a friend of Nini's and like a sister to French Maid.   
  
Death tore reality in half and twisted it between malicious fingers. Death severed the little hope that existed between all of us. Death turned our fragmented warmth to ice; our blood and hearts to stone.  
  
Though my tears have run dry, I watch others drown in the warm sorrow like Polkadot has - Harold's face a deep crimson, Satine the palest ivory. Bloodshot eyes and bleeding lips, torn handkerchiefs and pained breathing.   
  
Funeral arrangements are made between dance rehearsals. Schoolgirl, though she occasionally fumbles, is asked to take my place in the routines for the show. She apprehensively accepts. I watch her lie in bed at night, staring blankly at the ceiling and shivering - not from cold, but fear. The men do not favour her and thus she has few customers. She is known as the emotional one among us, the sympathetic ear. Her poetry touches us. She is a Rouge girl because of her spirit.   
  
Fulfilling my place begins to slowly weaken her from the inside. I can see her long to touch the mouth of a consumptive man - to fade away completely. Her rosy face hardens into one not unlike that of a marble statue. The compassion in her eyes is smothered with grief. She breaks down inside Marie's comforting embrace one night, and is ordered to bed.   
  
Rehearsals are tearful events. Despite this, Nini and her Argentinean have developed a penchant for making animalistic love behind the curtains that separate the backstage area from the dance floor. Every other performer is oblivious to the heated contact between two of the bordello's most famous bodies, for the passion-glazed lovers smother their rapturous cries with vicious kisses while Satine lands jetés and Arabia bandages her bleeding toes. When Nini is not needed to demonstrate triple chainés, she sheds her costume and corset in favour of pleasure and sweat.   
  
Thursday evening rehearsal is cut short as Toulouse brings news of a confirmation for my funeral; Travesty remembers that I'd once told her that having a priest or other pious figure at my memorial service would cause me definite unease. Thus, there are no crucifixes or musty bibles when people gather to commemorate my life.   
  
My body is ignited on a field near Montmartre, surrounded by oleanders and shattered onlookers. The sky a smoggy purple - anticipating rain. My ashes scatter into the wind like rose petals.  
  
Sweet Satine sings as the black cinders drift upwards. Her sorrowful soprano articulates the pain that so many people of the Underworld have buried. Death freezes time in the Underworld - shock sears minds and hearts. The frailty of human existence is realized.   
  
"No one here to guide you; now you're on your own." Her hair becomes a crimson halo, lifted by the wind; tears dance like ice down her face - and still she is magnificent. She clutches a single bleeding heart, the flower listless in her grasp. "Only me beside you, still you're not alone - truly, no one is alone."   
  
She pauses, trying to hold back the cough that burns her throat. "Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Others may deceive you; you decide what's good." My heart breaks with hers. She has known a cursed sickness and guilt that is incomprehensible to us all - the Sparkling Diamond is the strongest, meant to sacrifice and save. And yet she suffers most for being in love. "You decide alone." Her voice is a trapped bird in her throat, longing to feel a blissful rush of freedom; hindered by tears like a liquid cage. "But truly, no one is alone."   
  
I wonder briefly how often she sings when she is alone. Who is she behind locked doors? When the makeup and façade are rinsed clean, who is she? Does she cry? Does she scream? Does she press blades on her arms and long to be ripped from the deceitful embrace of the world? Does she shatter the mirrors that bear her reflection? Does she ache?   
  
Does she breathe?   
  
I have found that I float easily through rooms at the Moulin Rouge; the outdoors is no different. I glide next to Satine and gingerly brush a finger upon her cheek. She shivers, as though she has been drenched with ice water. I want to rub away her smudged kohl and lipstick. I want to wrap her in a shawl or offer her a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.   
  
Death has taken so much opportunity away. I can only watch the sinning angels on Montmartre shatter like porcelain. I cannot feel Satine's skin beneath my hand, nor does her tear glisten on my fingers. I have only caused her more agony, sending daggers of frost through flesh and bone and into her heart.   
  
"Jacqueline," she says softly, "was truly an angel. Wherever she is now, I'm certain she has earned silver wings." She returns to her place next to Christian; the Duke has chosen not to attend my funeral. His only concern is the crimson-haired consumptive who mourns for herself as well as for me.   
  
I silently rejoice that I have not left a lover to pick up the pieces of an ill-fated romance. I cannot help but wonder when Satine and her poet will be ripped apart - their fairytale was tainted from the moment their lips met, regardless of the fact that the Sparkling Diamond laughs and smiles, finally feeling a shard of fulfillment inside the arms of a man who truly cares. She is aware of the impending anguish she will someday face because she simply loved someone. She will not regret her love, only hold on to her wish to be released from a fate too black and tarnished to rub clean.   
  
Love has existed between Nini and the Argentinean for years - a love far darker and richer than anyone in the Underworld had the ability to comprehend. They did not succumb immediately to love, and instead watched it turn from a spark to a blaze, from their first muttered greetings to their raw tango. Their dance became the words that their mouths could not articulate. They fit together like puzzle pieces. Denial and spite would sometimes lick their hearts; underneath their separate facades was a single, mutual need for a passion that the rest of the malevolent world could not provide.   
  
When rain begins to fall in fat, icy drops, everyone returns to the Rouge in order to prepare for tonight's rehearsal. Satine will reminisce her days upon the trapeze and her broken dreams of flying; Travesty will don her pale pointe shoes. Nini will abandon performance in favour of another brutally blissful night on the Argentinean's dirty mattress.   
  
I will save a life.   
  
~*~ 


	3. All the Sweet Desperation

Author's Note: *sigh* Some changes have been made to the previous chapter because I was not completely satisfied with it (and because Petal pointed out continuity errors). Blame my muse; she's been a little sporadic as of late and seems to want to focus solely on smut. I'm trying to steer her clear of it, but a lot of the time it just doesn't work.   
  
Dedication: To sweet Kara, whom the category misses and loves.   
  
Songs used: "Embrace" by Joydrop and "Sour Times" by Portishead.   
  
Two  
  
~*~  
  
As a child, I had no concept of what a family was. I remember seeing angel-faced Juno draw pictures of her family when we were barely thirteen. It had confused me to see happiness between a man and a woman. Unlike Juno, I adapted easily into the Moulin Rouge because no love was necessary between courtesan and customer.   
  
My mother Chloe died giving birth to me; my father Jeremiah raised me to believe I was responsible for his suffering. He would tell me repeatedly that I'd killed my mother in a sort of punishment to him, and thus he was freely allowed to reprimand me. Scarlet welts often patterned my back. His eyes glowed from Absinthe and our house was a blue haze of cigarette smoke.   
  
My older sisters, Pearl and Ava, were the angels that took me under their wings and away from the pain my father infused into my bones. "Jacqueline," my father would say, "we should have named you after the devil himself. Disgusting wretch."   
  
The slaps would come in torrents then, until Ava would press smouldering cigarettes onto my father's arms or Pearl would break the Absinthe bottles, stopping his assault on my body; he would move to the parlour like lightning to save the phosphorescent liquid and his lover, the tiny fairy.   
  
My sisters would clean the blood from my face and sing me to sleep on the nights that he tormented me.   
  
My sisters were truly amazing. They gave me bonbons that turned my mouth cerise; they ran with me through the field near our house when rain flooded the ground and chilled us to the bone. When the sun shone upon our backs, we tangled our fingers in patches of raspberries. I smiled then, and loved then, learning pointe technique and the notes of the scale. I listened to them read Austen, thus later becoming one of the only literate girls at the Moulin Rouge.   
  
Just before I reached the age of seven, my father put a pistol in his mouth. I still remember his sallow face and grating voice; it penetrated my nightmares for years after his death.   
  
Pearl was fifteen then; Ava thirteen. They gave me cigarettes and curled my hair. My cheeks had seemed to become perpetually rosy from the marks papa had continuously left on them. The sun kissed my auburn hair in summer - Pearl nearly tied me down at the age of ten to drench my tresses with peroxide. The golden halo that tumbled across my shoulders and made my eyes shine sapphire caused my sisters to call me Dollface.   
  
The childish nickname had slipped out once at the Moulin when I'd held a doll of Harlequin's, touching its glass visage and russet fringe. Nini had laughed, pinching my cheek. She'd been calling me Kitten since we'd first met. The night had been cold; one shortly after Pearl had wed an enormously rich man whom she called Pierre.   
  
They spent sticky nights together, full of champagne and stars. When Pearl was not bathing or devouring mandarins, she had her husband let their bodies entwine for hours - the sounds that spilled from their bedroom would later become commonplace to me.   
  
My sisters had brought me such happiness, and I wished the same for them, though Pearl's marriage ended in a disaster. She did not waste her time with regret. Her choices regarding Pierre led me into the Underworld, which captured me like the sweetest embrace.   
  
Pearl found out from Ava that Pierre frequented Moulin, a regular customer of a Hispanic courtesan called Chance. Pearl had taken the hemoglobin-stained gun that had previously invaded my father's throat and fired three bullets into Pierre's beautiful skull.   
  
Nini and her friend - whose name I'd learned to be Simone - had pulled me away from the chaos. Harold noticed my face before he laid eyes on the commotion surrounding my sisters and a deceitful demon of a man. It was as though the latter had not taken place.   
  
Harold immediately took a liking to me, asking Nini how she'd found me. Nini'd given Harold a withering look. "She's a stray kitten. Found her in the courtyard cryin' for her mama." She'd buried her face into my brassy curls. "She needs a bath, Harold."   
  
My outraged sisters took me away from the bordello before I'd been allowed to relax in a basin filled with hot water. Despite our brief meeting, I knew I'd see the tiny raven-haired girl again. Her friend had not spoken to me, instead giving me a warm, crimson-lipped smile.   
  
Two months later, after I'd begged continuously, my sisters brought me back to the glittering scarlet windmill and infectious music. In the midst of the spectacle, Simone had appeared, snatching my arm and leading me backstage, where I'd been introduced to tiny Princesse and an imp of a ballerina known as Travesty.   
  
After showing Travesty my pointe shoes and doing fouettés with her as the band played a slow and smouldering song, I learned that Ava had met a beautiful Spaniard and the two of them had set the dance floor on fire.   
  
Nini had appeared moments later, red-cheeked, wide-eyed and breathless. "Someday I'ma meet someone as gorgeous as the one who danced with your sister," she told me, entwining her fingers with mine and initiating a sort of mock-tango around the shuffling of other girls as they fetched a hairpin here and a necklace there.   
  
I miss those times. We hadn't a care in the world. Nini and Satine had been inseparable then. I grew close with Travesty as we improved our battement kicks and piqué turns. Nini and Travesty would often use dance as their release. Unlike Travesty and I, Nini had never been given previous training. Her body knew the steps as though she'd danced in the womb. She exuded a passion that I could not master even in my final days.   
  
~*~   
  
Pearl was the dancer in my house. Ava sang more often than she spoke, but Pearl was the one who rose onto pointe in the early hours of the morning. With a hurricane inside her tiny body, she became a blur when she danced. When my legs wouldn't stretch far enough, she would push my hips until my muscles burned, until we could match one another with graceful leaps and unbroken lines of pirouettes. Ava found it immensely amusing when we would collide.   
  
I see so much of Pearl in Travesty as she presses her hand against her mirror and lifts her leg in an arabesque. She wears only a top hat, burgundy corset and her shoes; the pale pink matches her skin so closely that the slipper appears to be part of her body.   
  
The understanding I shared with Travesty was one I'd never developed with anyone else at the Rouge. We were the ballerinas. Every can-can girl had a different background in dance: Tarot's feet were rough from barefoot endeavours, Dominatrix's body was so malleable it often frightened me, Nini's best teacher had been her passion.   
  
Travesty and I were the ones who found comfort in ribbons that bound our ankles and the blood that often pooled on our toes inside the shoes we so adored. Jess had done ballet before her murder, but she'd never been close with Travesty nor I, choosing quiet corners instead of overflowing laughter and endless pirouettes.   
  
Tonight, Travesty is restless, with thoughts of past ballets danced and a friendship severed. She turns to Arabia, whose nimble fingers wind her ebony hair into coils. The other dancer has already donned her bright skirt and ivory bodice, her mocha cheeks warm and eyes sparkling.   
  
"Do you think Babydoll is watching us?" Travesty asks, more to fill the silence than to find an answer. She removes her hat and lets her curls fall, picking up a brush to separate them before they are twisted into an updo for the night.   
  
"Yes," Arabia replies, reaching for a stick of kohl to line her eyes, just as she had taught me. "I don't think the dead ever really leave us." Despite her cryptic tone, she smiles, pausing to trace her mouth with gloss red as blood.   
  
Tartan bursts into the dressing room in a panicked frenzy. Her face burns with fevered colour. "Where's my choker?" she cries. Jewellery boxes are flung open as she searches, whispering angrily to herself. "Where is it? Where is it?"   
  
Travesty rises up on her shoes and stares at her reflection before turning a slow chainé. "Did you lend it to Jacqueline?" she asks. "The sapphire one?" She watches Tartan nod slowly in remembrance, fretfully. Travesty spins again, saying almost as an afterthought, "It must be in her room."   
  
~*~   
  
Satine's rise to a place of utmost majesty gave her a trapeze, and thus the opportunity to fly. She was lifted above the filth that submerged the crowd below; a mire hidden by lavish costumes, only shown when skirts were lifted to reveal quivering thighs - a prelude to the happenings behind closed doors.   
  
When her death loomed close like the first breath of winter, it pained her to perform, though she never showed it. Her act had become a second skin by then. Tightness frequently writhed in her chest, one that no corset could cause. Blood encrusted her lips, but the makeup she wore and the garnet wine she sipped disguised the rawness that coated her throat and lungs.   
  
She often considered downing a mouthful of Absinthe to dull the spreading pain, but she once had terrible a experience with the resident hallucination and was never again gripped with an urge to be intoxicated. She was hurled into the phosphorescence and sludge of an eager crowd before being allowed a moment to breathe.   
  
She would let her voice pour over the audience like wine as she swung down towards them, gloved hand outstretched. She still possesses an ability to enthrall any crowd. When she paints on the façade, fragility dissolves into a transfixed smile.   
  
She had confessed to me one night that she sometimes wished for ugliness, so as not to be thrust forward into a hungry sea of potential customers. She has known rough clients, but never ones that have broken her skin or patterned her back in bruises. Every other Rouge girl has emerged from her room with a split lip or teeth marks on her arms at least once, but never the Sparkling Diamond.   
  
When she lets her longings encircle her, she sings. Tonight her song is shattered, despite her weary cheek upon Christian's shoulder. She has descended the heights of the trapeze to rest on earth, safe in the arms of her love. Still she yearns for a freedom unreachable.   
  
"It's like a dream to be happy… I never thought this far…" She lifts her face from its place against his skin, letting tears fall as he kisses her forehead. "And all the sweet desperation. I want it all…"   
  
The sincerity in his eyes is her only comfort then. She shakes as she sings, but the only redemption she will ever know is here. "Embrace me. Don't break me… 'cause this is all I wanted…" Her fingers weave through his hair and he holds her closer; their heartbeats join as one beneath iced flesh. "'Cause this is all I wanted…"   
  
~*~   
  
Beautiful and brash, Nini's cutting glamour and even sharper tongue are what cause men to lust after her. The smooth alabaster of her legs and the deep stain on her mouth captivate the leering customers. They perceive her as the unbreakable one; she sheds her tears alone.   
  
The salt that touches her face at twilight is born of sweat. The sweet crush of her lover's mouth is an escape from the cold emptiness of the past few days. Her darkness is dappled in crimson light and the siren song of her pleasure dissolves much of the anguish that lies inside her bones.   
  
She succumbs to the mercy of passion to numb the pain that gashes her heart. She seems to drift away from those who love her, snapped free of a friendship after being beaten or ignored. In spite of this, she holds steadfast to her Argentinean. He has seen past the mask she wears and shown her that splendour still exists beneath. His carnal knowledge of her body brings her out of deceit's encircling arms.   
  
His unpolished fingertips tangle into her hair and draw her close. She wants to melt into him, to be a callus on his hand, a blood vessel in his thigh. In repercussion of my murder, she drowns in the only comfort she knows.   
  
She'd once been soothed after pressing a blade against her skin and seeing blood run down her arms. Now her elation is in a scream or a sigh, for he brings fulfillment and ecstasy to the entwining of their limbs and the pressure of his mouth on hers. She adores the sound of his native tongue, drenching her in a foreign exhilaration and a recognized lust.   
  
"Nobody loves me… it's true…" She is flushed, fighting breathlessness. "Not like you do…"   
  
Her melody becomes a fluid moan, provoking biting gasps and tremors that race down her exquisite legs as she reaches the pinnacle of bliss, inciting her lover's heated breath upon her face; the friction of their skin grows hotter, until flames threaten to lick a searing path from their bellies to their hearts to set them both on fire.   
  
She closes her eyes and listens to her heartbeat syncopate with his, silently grateful that life still flows in her veins.   
  
~*~   
  
It amazes me that Schoolgirl has not been able to rise from bed even for the smallest of meals. She lies still, with an ashen face, her heartbeat the only sign that there is life in her body. When she lifts herself from sleep, she eyes knives with more hunger than the starving, longing to see red stain her white arms.   
  
Taking my place is a torment too great for the poor girl to bear. Her feet are weak. Perhaps she wishes they would deteriorate and destroy what is left of Harold's faith in her. When customers come to her room, she loses the coldness and feigns fervency. There are fragments of passion in her eyes as she does the one thing her body knows mechanically; the hollow between her legs filled but never satisfied. When the francs rain down the cold settles in again and numbness returns.   
  
"She is dying," the doctor says solemnly to Marie. His wizened face is blotted with concern. "She must be fed, at the very least."   
  
"Won't touch a morsel," Marie replies, lacing the back of Tarot's dress with deft hands. "We've stopped trying."   
  
I know that I cannot touch anyone; I have tried to dry Satine's tears. I only wish to reassure Schoolgirl. When the three-quarter moon hides its face, rain clouds break open and lightning casts jagged shadows across the garden. My face reflects in the window of Schoolgirl's room. My only hope is this brief moment.   
  
She sits up, growing paler. A shaking hand covers her mouth, lank hair falling across her shoulders. "Jacqueline?"   
  
I cannot form words for her ears, and in a moment my face vanishes from her view. I wait for her to collapse in shock, but instead the tears she has not shed come down her face in a flood. Her lips reform my name repeatedly, a silent prayer at having known I am watching her.   
  
I will not leave her.   
  
Within hours, colour returns to her cheeks. Her eyes still stream, but with joy rather than agony. She accepts an embrace from Tattoo and the two talk for what seems like hours. Comforted and calmed, she manages to choke down a little of Urchin's horrible attempt at supper. Though she coughs horribly afterward, she stops her gnawing hunger pain.   
  
Spanish and Historic help her to the baths, giving up their heated water and rinsing Schoolgirl clean of much of the misery that has coiled itself around her soul. An ache still remains on her heart when her skin glows, but her raw wound has been stitched closed. Sealed.   
  
~*~   
  
For seven days and six nights I wait for the man who killed me to return to the Moulin Rouge. With each moment that passes, anger brands my every thought. Polkadot was correct; he is the same man who took the life of beautiful Jess. He calls himself Vincent Detton, displaying horribly crooked teeth and a slap that is far worse.   
  
He enters the bordello alone, on a night sultry and threatening. He has not shown the slightest interest in the Sparkling Diamond, a first for most men that are lured into the Underworld. His proclivity lies with the girls who form the backdrop, despite our individuality and unique talent. We are the driving force of the Rouge. His hunger for bloodshed will only quell our brightness, spatter our golden palette with crimson.   
  
He carries a half-empty bottle of Absinthe and a slender silver blade, intent on finding our seraph, Juno. He wishes to cut her wings to ribbons and leave gouges on her cheeks. When I see the malice in his eyes and the francs tucked into his jacket, I can only hope that a third life will not be taken.   
  
I have saved Schoolgirl, and now must make certain that Juno will dance tomorrow night. If this madness does not stop, there will be nothing left of the family I have come to know and love - of the life I so cherished, of the life I have lost.   
  
~*~ 


	4. Come to Me Again

Author's Note: A bit of Travesty's history was influenced by a wonderful story that Faith Accompli has been writing. She gets credit here, for her work has been quite inspirational. Write on, darling. You're exceptional.   
  
Many, many a thank you to bunni for her encouragement. It's very much appreciated. To absolutely amazing and beautiful Petal for sticking by me and to Nicole for making me laugh through many tears as of late.   
  
Three  
  
Dedication: to the wonderfully talented Yvi.   
  
~*~  
  
I worked backstage and behind the scenes for nearly three years at the Rouge before I'd been allowed to participate in the spectacle and take customers. Travesty and I had been known to romp around in our pointe shoes as we discovered hidden corridors and dusty, unused rooms. We helped the older girls with their makeup and costumes, just as Nini and Satine had done before us.   
  
My first night on the dance floor had been a couple of weeks after I'd turned fifteen; I'd taken in a young musician with wavy hair who'd left me an amethyst pendant. Travesty was not as inexperienced as I was, for she'd slept with men twice her age to be part of a ballet company in her native Romania. We'd begun our whoring on the same evening, and had emerged as different people, though we were still the best of friends.   
  
As time when on and clients began to seek me out among the girls, I'd been given a room next to Gypsy, filled with pale pink silk and eyelet lace. I worked, slept and died on those same pillows. My new life at the Rouge had begun and ended in that room.   
  
It has been made to look as though I still work there. After Detton left the bordello and my body was found and carried away, Marie rid the laundry of the bloodied linen and made my bed up good as new. Gypsy has told Marie that this would help to banish harmful energies from the room, just as she had said after Jess' body had been found. That room is boarded up now. I can only hope that the same does not happen to mine.   
  
I watch Tartan enter my room, filled with apprehension. Jewels are still strewn in handfuls across my dressing table, amid the perfume bottles and makeup brushes. She sees a glint of pale blue among the rubies and jades. Before picking her way through the brooches and bracelets like a thief (though she is claiming what belongs to her) she takes a moment to gaze around my room. It is as though she's half-expecting me to be sitting on the suspended swing above my bed, or curled up at the window seat, watching the heavy downpour outside.   
  
A sob rises from her throat. Her usually bright expression has melted into one of sorrow. She clamps a hand over her mouth; playful and emotional as she is, she hates to cry. She has only seen four people shed tears since Detton took my life. She bites her lip in determination not to be the fifth.   
  
She reaches for the string of indigo stones that I had borrowed the week before, to match a new dress Harold had given to me. I'd turned nineteen then, and the night had been filled with mauve fireworks and laughter. I'd seen Ava that night, for her birthday was quite close to mine and we'd always celebrated ours together. Pearl had accompanied my sister and the two of them had brought me a comfort I hadn't felt for a long time.   
  
Tartan retrieves her jewellery, her stomach clenched with a feeling of dissatisfaction, as though her presence in my room is meant for something other than plucking multifaceted gems from a glittering heap. When she fastens the clasp of the choker and it settles upon her throat, a shudder runs down her spine. Can she still feel my presence inside the stones? Have I made that dramatic an affect on such a thing?   
  
She leaves my room, in fear that her eyes will stream and noisy, gulping cries will cause questions and tears from the other girls. She seeks solace in China Doll's room, and together they make their way downstairs to the sitting room to burn the jewellery in the fireplace. I will see then if my energy will be released and given back to me.   
  
The cluster of gems smokes and smoulders to ash, the same way the diamonds had done each time I'd thrown them disdainfully into the fire after a wretched night with a client. The grey tendrils that rise from the flames brush across the girls' faces. They shiver, knowing that whatever I have touched is somehow infused with my life force. The necklace is no exception.   
  
"She's still with us," China Doll says quietly, freeing her obsidian hair from its single plait as they make their way to rehearsal, trying to calm their racing hearts. "She has not left us for a reason."   
  
Tartan's eyes are wide with fear as she skips the eleventh step on the staircase. "Didn't Tarot tell us after Jess' death that ghosts have a sort of unfinished business and don't cross over to Heaven or Hell until it's completed?"   
  
They step on to the gleaming dance floor to join the other girls. "Yes," China says resolutely, dashing across the floor to swipe a cigarette from Arabia. The two women share a kiss and light their cylinders contentedly, wanting to momentarily forget their sadness. Tartan sinks down onto the floor beside Polkadot and closes her eyes, finally understanding the grief that the latter feels.   
  
It is rare that we take customers during rehearsal times, but Detton has always paid well. When he is not intoxicated, he spends a regular night with any of us. He has only twice come to the Rouge under the influence of a narcotic or Absinthe; both times, there has been death. The bottle Detton carries tonight is nowhere near full, though I know he has yet to let the liquid burn his throat. He must be stopped before he drinks.  
  
Zidler is not aware that Detton is responsible for the murders of Jess and me. Even if he was, I have strong doubt that he would care, for Detton is wealthy and that is what drives Harold: money. I can just imagine him, cheeks reddening as he says, "Keep the Absinthe away and bring on the francs!" He's schemer to the core and a glutton for electricity and brash music. He takes sixty percent of what we earned with customers. He loves the crisp wads of bills that have always filled Detton's pockets.   
  
Juno and Liberty are bedecked in glitter and giddiness as they practice their separate dance steps, side by side. The contrast draws attention from Tarot and Garden Girl, who perch atop the Four Whores table to watch rehearsal. Liberty's skirts are a swish of deep indigo and red as she spins dizzily; in her fuchsia skirt and shimmering silver corset, Juno lands split leaps around her friend. Her bubbly laughter breaks the taut tension that fills the entirety of the dance hall.   
  
Juno is one of the few girls who has not let my death inhibit her excitement for the impending production. She is the angel among us; the brightness in times of gloom. The perpetual optimist. She has often stepped aside in performances to allow other moments of glory. She still remains popular with clients, who favour her musical laughter and the intensity and passion with which she approaches everything she does. She is far from the best dancer, but she grows better every day under Nini's instruction and inspiration.   
  
French Maid laughs coquettishly with her regular customer, an oily-voiced thirty-something photographer. Detton strides across the dusty dance floor and hooks his fingers around Juno's arm, pressing his mouth close to her ear. He whispers something to her, bringing a flush to her cheeks. The two of them stroll up the gilded stairs. Juno's door closes with a resounding bang. Polkadot looks on uneasily.   
  
"He killed Jess," she whispers. "And he killed Jacqueline."   
  
Garden Girl jumps down from the Four Whores table and threads her arms around Polkadot. "I've spent a night with him and he did nothing nasty to me," she confirms, wiping her thumb across her friend's wet cheek. "Nini says he's only dangerous when he's drunk."   
  
"He was carrying a bottle of Absinthe, Fleur!" Polkadot cries shrilly. "If we don't intercept it, Juno's going to get cut open!" She rips herself from Garden Girl's arms and races up the stairs, ignoring Tartan, who calls after her.   
  
Her path is blocked by Nini, who emerges from her room at the top of the stairs, piqued by the commotion that reverberates through the Rouge. She grips Polkadot's shoulders firmly, her gaze intense and burning. "Belle, shut your mouth. If we innerupt 'em there'll be hell t'pay,"   
  
Polkadot's body goes limp beneath Nini's clutch. She stares at the older woman, lip trembling. Together, they turn and walk back to the dance floor. Unsettled still, Polkadot says, "What is there we can do? Jess is dead and Jacqueline is dead. I know Detton killed them! I know he did!" Her voice grows louder with each word, cracking in desperation.   
  
Tarot jumps down from her place upon the table and crosses the floor, shoes clicking harshly against the wood. With a hand on Polkadot's shoulder, she says, "I have a feeling that Jacqueline will take care of things. Ghosts have a way of connecting with those on earth in times of dire need or joy." She ignores Polkadot's sceptical expression. "Jacqueline is watching over us, Belle."   
  
In rueful acceptance, Belle wipes the tears off her cheeks and turns to Nini. "Let's dance," she challenges the Englishwoman. They gather up their skirts and snarl playfully, kicking up their heels. The other girls join in. Soon the can-can is in full force, the delighted screeches and swishing of skirts will drown out Juno's screams.   
  
~*~   
  
Behind the locked door, there are no distractions. Flames hiss to life as Juno lights candles around the room. Her hips sway gently when she walks. She ripples her shoulders to make her wings move. The halo she wears glitters in the soft light. She has transformed. She is no longer the giddy girl who pranced around with Liberty on the dance floor. She is a seductress, despite her seraphic appearance.   
  
"Monsieur, it is wonderful to see you again." She eyes the Absinthe bottle in her client's hands with caution; she knows that the same phosphorescent liquid caused Jess a broken ribcage and me a slit throat. She takes it from him after he swallows a mouthful and sets it onto her chesterfield. In compensation, when she turns back to him she slides her arms about his waist and lifts her face to kiss him. The alcohol still covers his mouth, and with the taste of it, her fear grows.   
  
As Juno's unease rises, so does my anger. If it is indeed my unfinished business to stop Detton's ruthless thirst for quivering thighs and bloodshed, something must be done.  
  
When they break apart, she holds out her pale hand and he takes it. She initiates more movement around the room, knowing that he loves when she presses her hips into his in a slow grind. She tries to ignore the terrified thrum of her heartbeat.   
  
They have spent many nights together when he is sober. She is a favourite of his, and his favourites have always been the ones he has abused. Upon realising he cannot have any of the women he obsesses over in exclusivity, he'd decided that no one was fit to have us at all. It had begun with Nini, but she'd fought back, emerging with only a necklace of bruises. His hunger had spread to the more fragile ones, as though he were peeling the wings off a butterfly. Nini was the wasp that had stung him between the eyes. Since then, he has kept his distance from her.   
  
Fragility is what drew him to Jess and me; it is obvious that he sees the same in Juno. There is an intoxicant in his gullet and a knife inside his coat. He has stroked the blade the same way he runs his fingers across Juno's cheek.   
  
Her bright personality makes her act one of the easiest to pull off. Tonight, there is the slightest tremor in her voice. She does her best to hide her panic. She has seen death now, and not even the most dazzling of smiles can completely numb her dread.   
  
When there is the slightest of pauses in their rhythm, he tells her, "Only an angel such as yourself would be so sweet." His voice has always made me afraid, and Juno feels the same way. She plays on; he's her client, regardless of his past history.  
  
"You do flatter me too much." They kiss again, and her fingers find his shirt, pulling it open and patterning the floor in white buttons. Breaking the kiss, her pink lipstick leaves its mark across the newly exposed flesh.   
  
I close my eyes, and all I can see is gouges on Juno's face that Vincent will make, ones to match the smudges on his chest. How I wish I could wrap my fingers around his throat. He is the most horrible man to ever enter the Rouge. The Duke holds the deeds to the Moulin Rouge and possesses Satine, but he has not killed anyone. He has the power to do so, but it has yet to happen.   
  
I know that my attempt to dry Satine's tears only left her feeling cold. I float towards Vincent and reach out to touch his throat. He shudders visibly. I know this is not enough to keep him away from the Absinthe or his knife.   
  
He leans down, his mouth covering the smooth ball of Juno's shoulder. He has undone many a corset and has no difficulty removing hers, to hold her body against him. He lifts her up and she scissors her legs around his waist.  
  
"I am so cold. Make me warm, angel."   
  
They move toward the vermilion four-poster, and he snatches up his Absinthe bottle before she can stop him, taking a long, burning pull and crushing her mouth with his. When he turns his face away, he swallows more before, slamming the bottle down onto the bedside table. He pushes both hands against her; she lands on the bed, wide eyed and shaking. He advances on her; the first slap comes then, blundering and still painful across Juno's cheek. She cries out, and another blow leaves a bright red print on her skin.   
  
She cannot breathe beneath him. I hate the malice in his eyes. I hate the possessive grip he holds on her wrists as he pulls her up for another kiss. The Absinthe is to blame, but I know the Green Fairy has not told him to do these things. She is the spirit of a girl he murdered. She has told many awful things to other men, and yet even she is afraid of Detton. Without the cynicism and anger that can be known to follow the coquettish dance Jess performs, Detton acts with recklessness, drawing blood from Juno's skin as he clutches her.   
  
It is the intoxication itself that drives him to do these things. My life was stolen because of alcohol. My anger has skyrocketed past the stars. The candles are guttering; he presses a hand on her mouth to stifle her cries. "Such pretty rosy cheeks," he snarls. He will slash them open, to see if his angel bleeds. He reaches for the knife.   
  
Slowly, very slowly, the Absinthe bottle begins to crack.   
  
~*~ 


End file.
